How to remove Searchsnow.com (Mac)

What is Searchsnow.com

Searchsnow.com belongs to a category of potentially unwanted programs that impose fake search engines and other unnecessary features. Such changes are usually promoted by browser hijackers that are meant to exclude personal data from your browser settings and sell it to cybercriminals. In our case, Searchsnow.com applies an ostensibly useful engine on Mac browsers redirecting your queries through mybrowser-search.com and other suspicious pages like searchbaron.com or similar. Unfortunately, manual uninstallation does not give that much effect because browser hijackers tend to reinstall themselves multiple times, even without users’ involvement. To get rid of all traces and provide safer experience in the future, we advise you to delete Searchsnow.com by using our guidelines below.

How Searchsnow.com infected your computer

Browser hijackers and other unwanted programs like adware can penetrate systems in two major ways. First is via repacks that contain sponsored offers under “Advanced” or “Custom” sections. These offers get often overlooked because of the negligent and inattentive behavior of many users. Another gross method of distributing malware of this type is forcing people to click on malicious ads either intentionally or not. Some banners can appear randomly on the screen of malicious pages whilst you were intended to click on something else. Other cases illustrate beautiful banners with highlighted headlines that contain unwanted redirects. This is why you should be careful in selecting what software and pages you browse on the web. To reinforce your protection, even more, we recommend installing the “AdBlock” extension that hides most of the ads. You can find even more tips upon cybersecurity in the article below.

Remove Searchsnow.com manually for free

Here is the manual step-by-step tutorial for full Searchsnow.com removal from your computer. This works 99% and was checked with the latest versions of the Searchsnow.com installer on operating systems with the latest updates and browser versions.

Important update: Searchsnow.com hijacker installs malicious Device Profile called AdminPrefs on MacOS, that won’t allow users to make changes to browser search engine and homepage settings. Follow instructions below to remove this profile.

Remove Searchsnow.com profile

1. Go to System Preferences and click on Profiles.
2. In the list of profiles on the left side choose AdminPrefs and click on “-” button to remove it.
3. In your case it can be named differently, in this case remove all visible profiles. Check the picture below to see how it looks like.

Remove Searchsnow.com from Applications

Remove Searchsnow.com from Mac:

1. In the Finder sidebar, click Applications.
2. SearchsNow might have an Uninstaller. If you see Uninstall SearchsNow or SearchsNow Uninstaller, double-click it and follow the onscreen instructions.
3. Otherwise, drag SearchsNow from the Applications folder to the Trash (located at the end of the Dock).
4. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash.

Cannot uninstall Searchsnow.com

If you can’t uninstall Searchsnow.com using instructions above, or it keeps coming back, you can use free AppCleaner for Mac to remove all residual data and libraries of Searchsnow.com. Follow instructions below:

1. Download free AppCleaner.
2. Drag SearchsNow from Applications folder to AppCleaner window.
3. Choose files and folders you want to remove along with SearchsNow.
4. Click Delete button.

Remove Searchsnow.com add-on from your browsers

Removing SearchsNow from Applications often does not bring the desired effect. It is a browser extension and it may still be active in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Here are instructions on how to remove the SearchsNow extension from your browsers manually.

Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Click Extensions tab.
3. Find SearchsNow extension.
4. Click Uninstall button to remove it.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://extensions.
3. Find SearchsNow extension.
4. Click the trash can icon to remove it.

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:addons.
3. Choose SearchsNow extension.
4. Click Disable or Remove button.

Reset browser settings

To finish Searchsnow.com removal reset your browser settings to make sure, there are no leftover items in browser folders.

Reset Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Go to the Privacy section of Safari’s preferences.
3. Click Remove All Website Data button.
4. In opened window click Remove Now button to remove data stored by websites in Safari.
5. Go to the Advanced section of Safari’s preferences.
6. Click the Show Develop menu in menu bar option.
7. In the menu click Develop and select Empty Caches from this menu.
8. Again, go to Safari menu and choose Clear History….
9. Choose to clear all history and click Clear History button.

Reset Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://settings.
3. Scroll down and find Show advanced settings link.
4. Click on it and scroll down to the bottom again.
5. Click Reset settings button and click Reset to confirm.

Reset Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:support.
3. Click Refresh Firefox… button.
4. Click Refresh Firefox to confirm.

Remove following files and folders of Searchsnow.com


~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.SearchsNow.plist
~/Library/Safari/Extensions/SearchsNow.safariextz
~/Library/Application Support/SearchsNow


How to protect Mac OSX from hijackers, like Searchsnow.com

Mac OSX is known to be one of the safest operating systems, and for a long time there was no need in antivirus products for Mac. But with the growing popularity of Mac computers and notebooks and evolving technology, viruses, trojans, adware, toolbars, hijackers and other malware paved the way for Mac users. We recommend you to use one of the best anti-malware for Mac available – Malwarebytes for Mac.